A cooked meat product having a cavity containing a stuffing is a very popular food item. It is desirable to cook the raw meat product in intimate contact with the stuffing to obtain optimal stuffing characteristics (e.g., proper texture, moisture content and flavor). Accordingly, manufacturers often fill the cavity of the raw meat product with stuffing prior to packaging to improve food-handling, safety, and to simplify the preparation required by the end user.
Conventional filling methods typically include a step for pre-mixing a dry stuffing (e.g. a farinaceous ingredient, such as staled breadcrumbs or the like, spices and/or vegetables) with a liquid (e.g. water). Pre-mixing the dry stuffing with a liquid tends to cause the breadcrumbs to lose their original shape and form, resulting in a soggy stuffing with an undesirable texture. This phenomenon can be best explained at the molecular level. A staling process is typically used to manufacture the staled breadcrumbs that are incorporated into the dry stuffing. The staling process involves a physical change commonly referred to as starch retrogradation in which the starch molecules are reorganized into an ordered crystalline structure. When a liquid is subsequently added to the staled breadcrumbs under the sheer stresses applied during the pre-mixing step, the starch molecules absorb the liquid and become unstable (i.e., the ordered crystalline structure of the starch molecules break down and the breadcrumbs become soggy). This problem is made worse when the pre-mixed stuffing is not used immediately after being prepared. The pre-mixed stuffing is loaded into a hopper, and subsequently filled into the cavity of the raw meat product.